


A Place of Rest

by tinx_r



Category: Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 00:01:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,163
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18767041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tinx_r/pseuds/tinx_r
Summary: Watson is ill. Holmes is a surprisingly attentive nursemaid.





	A Place of Rest

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Tibby](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tibby/gifts).



Things were not at all as I would have expected. 

Ten days in a damp dungeon, a pawn in some plot of Moriarty's I'd yet to fully understand, had left me plagued with a chest infection -- a weakness I was susceptible to as a legacy of my time in Afghanistan. A cursed weakness, and one I'd taken pains to hide from Holmes.

Or so I had thought.

As so often before, in this I had hidden nothing. At the first sign of my hastily-swallowed cough, he had bundled me to bed with all the solicitation of a nursemaid, and despite his usual aloof mien, was as attentive as any field-nurse.

It was strange and unsettling, and fevered as I was, I doubted my own understanding.

He knew his way around my consulting room well enough, and I was able to direct him to find the tinctures and elixirs most likely to bring me relief. But in the end, of course, it is less the physic than time, and warmth, and steam, that cures or at least abates this ill.

Man of science though he might be, Holmes was no different than the general public in demanding an immediate cure from the medicine presented. With none to be found, he was as restless as I’d ever seen hm, and I have no doubt that once I had fallen into my uneasy doze each evening, he took solace in that drug I must deplore.

Be that as it may, my disturbed nights were yet defined by his presence, with cool washcloths, sweet tea, cough elixirs, and when nothing else would prevail, his calm, steady voice, reading to me from one or another of the journals he had to hand.

The topics were eclectic and outlandish - as always with Holmes - but my state of mind was hardly to be relied upon and they were strangely soothing. 

By the fourth night, the fever was running its course, and I knew in a day or two I would be well again. I was cold - shivering despite the fire in the grate and my blankets - the cough had all but passed by now, but I was left with the aches of fever. I tried ineffectually to drag the blankets closer about me, and bit back a cry of pain.

“Come, Watson, this wont do,” said Holmes, putting down his book and turning back from the fire. “Surely there is a physician I can summon, man.”

“Unnecessary,” I replied, as I had every other time he’d made the suggestion. “I do very well, and this is nothing untoward. Merely some discomfort.”

“Quite,” he said, and wiped my face with a dry towel. It was warm from the fire, and I closed my eyes. It felt heavenly. “I do believe your fever may break tonight.”

“You must tell me where you studied medicine,” I said faintly, without opening my eyes. 

“At the feet of one John Watson, M.D.,” said Sherlock Holmes. “I believe you know the man?”

I didn’t have the strength to chuckle, but I found a smile, and opened my eyes again. “A veritable quack, I’m afraid,” I murmured. “I shouldn’t trust his diagnosis, I fear.”

“That, my dear Watson, is the only thing I fear.” Holmes reached out and put his hand on my shoulder. “Come on, man, tell me the truth. This illness - what next? How do I know you’re getting better?”

“I am, Holmes. Don’t fear.” I was enormously touched by his gesture, by his evident fear for my health - by his ongoing presence. It couldn’t be easy for my introverted companion to spend so much time in the presence of another, for even though we roomed together, we were not wont to spend every moment of the day together.

“But I must fear, for my physician has not yet healed himself, and Mrs. Hudson laments of inflammations of the lungs on a daily basis.”

“Sadly, this physician requires the help of Father Time in the healing process, and he is not a chap prone to hurrying. I expect my lungs are inflamed, along with my oesophagus, and probably the bullet wound in my shoulder also, but none of those things will carry me off, I assure you. I have a weak chest now, prone to infection, and thus I presently suffer with fever.”

To my mind, Holmes was staring at me with affection and concern - the emotions, after all we’d shared, were no longer surprising, but it was not his wont to show them upon his face. “Trust me!” I exclaimed. “I will be well in two days.”

“And if not?”

“If I fall into delirium, if you cannot wake me, if I begin vomiting and cannot keep water down - in this case, fear for me, and summon Doctor Walker from Marylebone Road. You will find his direction in the top drawer of my desk.” It was better, I decided, to arm Holmes with facts and a course of action than reassurances - true though they were.

“Thank you,” said Sherlock Holmes, and there was a good deal of relief in his voice. “I know you say you will do very well, and it is not that I don’t believe you, my dear. But you cannot be surprised at my concern. You must know by now, John, that I would be lost without you.”

I smiled as Holmes took my hand and raised it to his lips. For many months now, the love that dared not speak its name had been our precious secret. But despite sharing our bodies and our bed, such declarations between us were few and far between. Indeed, only rarely had I heard my first name upon my lover’s lips.

“I know,” I replied, “and hence I would not leave you. London would never be the same.”

He laughed at that, and kicked off his shoes. “I believe you’re warmer now,” he said reflectively, “and more comfortable. Shall I join you tonight?”

“Do,” I agreed, and moved over. Since I had been ill, he had been napping on the daybed, as the fever made me restless, one moment too cold, the next too hot. He was right - I was warmer, without the prickly, sticky heat of fever. “I shall be even more comfortable with you.”

“I am counting on it, my friend. As I have been uncomfortable enough the past days without you.”

Holmes was putting a great deal into words tonight - more than I had ever hoped for or imagined. “You have brought me peace,” I said frankly in reply. “Knowing you are close is a great relief to me.”

He coloured up, both pleased and embarrassed if I was any judge, and hurriedly extinguished the lamp. “See if you can sleep,” he said, climbing under the covers and joining me. 

I leaned into his arms, letting go, letting him hold me as he needed to. As I needed him to. Yes, I would sleep tonight, and so would he.


End file.
